Tickets & Events

Tanglewood

The Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) is the Boston Symphony
Orchestra's summer academy for advanced musical
study. Young professional-level musicians of
exceptional ability, while on full fellowships that cover the costs
of room, board, and tuition, work closely with members of the BSO
and renowned guest artists, performing some 40 concerts each
season.

Featured Performers

Composer John Harbison is among America's most prominent
artistic figures. He has received numerous awards and distinctions,
including three of the most prestigious: the MacArthur Foundation's
"genius" award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Heinz Award in the Arts
and Humanities. Harbison has composed music for most of this
country's premiere musical institutions, including the Metropolitan
Opera (for whom he wrote The Great Gatsby), the Chicago
Lyric Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the
Boston Symphony, the Los Angles Philharmonic, the Chamber Music
Society of Lincoln Center, and the Santa Fe and Aspen festivals.
His works include four string quartets, five symphonies, a ballet,
three operas, and numerous chamber and choral works.

Harbison's music is distinguished by its exceptional
resourcefulness and expressive range. He is considered to be
"original, varied, and absorbing - relatively easy for audiences to
grasp and yet formal and complex enough to hold our interest
through repeated hearings - his style boasts both lucidity and
logic" (Fanfare). Harbison is also a gifted commentator on
the art and craft of composition and was recognized in his student
years as an outstanding poet (he wrote his own libretto for
Gatsby).

Several works have recently premiered: Double Concerto
for Violin and Cello with the Boston Symphony Orchestra;
Diamond Watch: Double Play for Two Pianos (at MIT),
Leonard Stein Anagrams (for Piano Spheres), Mary
Lou (for the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony), The Seven
Ages (A Koussevitsky commission for the New York New Music
Ensemble and the San Fransisco Contemporary Music Players),
French Horn Suite (Boston, MA), A Clear Midnight
(Pro Arte Singers), Winter's Tale (BMOP, complete revised
version), Symphony No. 5, commissioned by the Boston
Symphony Orchestra; The Great Gatsby Suite (for the Aspen
Festival Orchestra), Cortège, for six percussionists (New
England Conservatory); Milosz Songs (commissioned by the
New York Philharmonic for long-time Harbison champion Dawn Upshaw);
the Concerto for Bass Viol (commissioned by the
International Society for Double Bassists for a consortium of
fifteen major orchestras); But Mary Stood: Sacred Symphony for
Soprano, Chorus and Strings (Cantata Singers of Boston); and
the sinfonietta Umbrian Landscape (Chicago Chamber
Musicians)

Harbison's present composition projects include a setting of texts
by Alice Munro for voice and orchestra (for the Metropolitan Opera
Orchestra), his Sixth Symphony for the Boston Symphony Orchestra
(who are also honoring Harbison by presenting his full symphonic
cycle between 2010-2012), his fifth string quartet (for the Pro
Arte Quartet), and a work for violin and piano (Music
Accord).

Harbison's opera Full Moon in March (BMOP Sound) was
released on CD in April 2009 and The First Four String
Quartets (Centaur) was released in September, joining several
new recordings issued last season: Christmas Vespers
(Brassjar Music), Montale Occasions (Albany), and the
ballet Ulysses (BMOP Sound). Other recent releases include
The Rewaking (String Quartet with Soprano, Bridge);
Partita (American Orchestral Works, Cedille), nominated
for a Grammy Award; John Harbison: Chamber Music (Naxos);
Music of John Harbison, Volume 1 (Bridge); The Amelia
Trio: Music of John Harbison (Naxos); Motetti di
Montale (Koch), also a Grammy nominee; Symphony No. 3
(Oehms Classics: Levine/Munich); String Quartet No. 4
(Koch); the Viola Concerto (Albany); the Cello
Concerto (Albany); Four Psalms and Emerson
(New World); and Variations, Four Songs of
Solitude, and Twilight Music (Naxos). Altogether,
more than ninety of his compositions have been recorded on labels
such as Albany, Centaur, Nonesuch, Northeastern, Harmonia Mundi,
New World, Decca, Koch, Archetype, CRI, Naxos, Bridge, Cedille, and
Musica Omnia labels. The Musica Omnia double album of works for
string quartet was named one of top ten classical CDs of the year
by The New York Times.

Harbison has been composer-in-residence with the Pittsburgh
Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Tanglewood, Marlboro,
and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festivals, Songfest, and the American
Academy in Rome. As a conductor, Harbison has led a number of
leading orchestras and chamber groups. From 1990 to 1992 he was
Creative Chair with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, conducting
music from Monteverdi to the present, and in 1991, at the Ojai
Festival, he led the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Harbison has also
conducted many other ensembles,among them the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the Handel and Haydn
Society. Mr. Harbison first led Bach cantata performances in 1958
as conductor of Harvard's Bach Society Orchestra. He has continued
to do so every year since then, in two tenures as music director of
Boston's Cantata Singers, and then for many years as principal
guest conductor of Emmanuel Music in Boston, leading performances
there not only of Bach cantatas, but also 17th-century motets, and
contemporary music.

Harbison was born in Orange, New Jersey on December 20, 1938 into
a musical family. He was improvising on the piano by five years of
age and started a jazz band at age 12. He did his undergraduate
work at Harvard University and earned an MFA from Princeton
University. Following completion of a junior fellowship at Harvard,
Harbison joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology where, in 1984, he was named Class of 1949 Professor of
Music; in 1994, Killian Award Lecturer in recognition of
"extraordinary professional accomplishments;"and in 1995 he was
named Institute Professor, the highest academic distinction MIT
offers to resident faculty. He has also taught at CalArts and
Boston University, and in 1991 he was the Mary Biddle Duke Lecturer
in Music at Duke University. Furthering the work of younger
composers is one of Harbison's prime interests, and he serves as
president of the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

In 1998, Harbison was named winner of the Heinz Award for the Arts
and Humanities, a prize established in honor of the late Senator
John Heinz by his wife Teresa to recognize five leaders annually
for significant and sustained contributions in the Arts and
Humanities, the Environment, the Human Condition, Public Policy and
Technology, and the Economy and Employment. He is the recipient of
numerous other awards, among them the Distinguished Composer award
from the American Composer's Orchestra (2002), the Harvard Arts
Medal (2000), the American Music Center's Letter of Distinction
(2000), the Kennedy Center Friedheim First Prize (for his Piano
Concerto), a MacArthur Fellowship (1989), and the Pulitzer
Prize (1987). He also holds four honorary doctorates.

Much of Harbison's violin music has been composed for his wife
Rose Mary, with whom he serves as artistic director of the annual
Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, founded in 1989 and held on the
family farm in Wisconsin, where much of Harbison's music has been
composed.

In recent years, Harbison has revived his career as a jazz
pianist, composer, and arranger. Early on, as the founder-leader of
the Harbison Heptet and as sideman in many other groups - playing
with Tom Artin, Buck Clayton, Vic Dickenson, Jo Jones, and Edmund
Hall (1952-1963) - he took a jazz sabbatical for four decades,
returning in 2003 to found the Token Creek Jazz Ensemble. The
quartet and guests perform exclusively for the annual Token Creek
Festival in Wisconsin. As a keyboard player he explores affinities
between jazz change playing and figured bass realization.

Harbison's music is published exclusively by Associated Music
Publishers.

The Tanglewood Music Center Fellowship Program is the Boston
Symphony Orchestra's summer academy for advanced musical study. The
TMC offers an intensive schedule of study and performance for
emerging professional instrumentalists, singers, conductors, and
composers who have completed most of their formal training in
music.

Serge Koussevitzky, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's music
director from 1924 to 1949, founded the school with the intention
of creating a premier music academy where, with the resources of a
great symphony orchestra at their disposal, young musicians would
sharpen their skills under the tutelage of Boston Symphony
Orchestra musicians and other specially invited artists.

The Berkshire Music Center opened formally on July 8, 1940, with
both speeches (Koussevitzky, alluding to the war then raging in
Europe, said, "If ever there was a time to speak of music, it is
now in the New World") and music, including the first performance
of Randall Thompson's Alleluia for unaccompanied chorus, which was
written for the ceremony and arrived less than an hour before the
event was to begin, but which made such an impression that it is
sung every summer at the TMC's Opening Exercises. The TMC became
Koussevitzky's pride and joy for the rest of his life. He assembled
an extraordinary faculty in composition, operatic and choral
activities, and instrumental performance; he himself taught the
most gifted conductors.

Koussevitzky continued to develop the Tanglewood Music Center
until 1950, a year after his retirement as the BSO's music
director. Charles Munch, his successor in that position, ran the
TMC from 1951 through 1962, working with Leonard Bernstein and
Aaron Copland to shape the school's programs. In 1963, new BSO
Music Director Erich Leinsdorf took over the school's reins,
returning to Koussevitzky's hands-on leadership approach while
restoring a renewed emphasis on contemporary music. The TMC's
annual Festival of Contemporary Music, produced in association with
the Fromm Music Foundation, was begun in 1963.

In 1970, three years before his appointment as BSO music
director, Seiji Ozawa became head of the BSO's programs at
Tanglewood, with Gunther Schuller leading the TMC and Leonard
Bernstein as general advisor. Leon Fleisher served as the TMC's
Artistic Director from 1985 to 1997. In 1994, with the opening of
Seiji Ozawa Hall, the TMC centralized its activities on the Leonard
Bernstein Campus, which also includes the Aaron Copland Library,
chamber music studios, administrative offices, and the Leonard
Bernstein Performers Pavilion adjacent to Ozawa Hall. In 1998,
Ellen Highstein was appointed to the new position of Director of
the Tanglewood Music Center, operating under the artistic
supervision of Seiji Ozawa. Maestro James Levine took over as Music
Director of the BSO in 2005 and has continued the tradition of
hands-on involvement with the TMC, conducting both orchestral
concerts and staged operas, as well as participating in
masterclasses for singers, conductors, and composers.

It would be impossible to list all the distinguished musicians
who have studied at the Tanglewood Music Center. According to
recent estimates, 20 percent of the members of American symphony
orchestras, and 30 percent of all first-chair players, studied at
the TMC.

Today, alumni of the Tanglewood Music Center play a vital role
in the musical life of the nation. Tanglewood and the Tanglewood
Music Center, have become a fitting shrine to the memory of Serge
Koussevitzky, a living embodiment of the vital, humanistic
tradition that was his legacy. At the same time, the Tanglewood
Music Center maintains its commitment to the future as one of the
world's most important training grounds for the composers,
conductors, instrumentalists, and vocalists of tomorrow.

The Tanglewood Music Center Fellowship Program is the Boston
Symphony Orchestra's summer academy for advanced musical study. The
TMC offers an intensive schedule of study and performance for
emerging professional instrumentalists, singers, conductors, and
composers who have completed most of their formal training in
music.

Serge Koussevitzky, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's music
director from 1924 to 1949, founded the school with the intention
of creating a premier music academy where, with the resources of a
great symphony orchestra at their disposal, young musicians would
sharpen their skills under the tutelage of Boston Symphony
Orchestra musicians and other specially invited artists.

The Berkshire Music Center opened formally on July 8, 1940, with
both speeches (Koussevitzky, alluding to the war then raging in
Europe, said, "If ever there was a time to speak of music, it is
now in the New World") and music, including the first performance
of Randall Thompson's Alleluia for unaccompanied chorus, which was
written for the ceremony and arrived less than an hour before the
event was to begin, but which made such an impression that it is
sung every summer at the TMC's Opening Exercises. The TMC became
Koussevitzky's pride and joy for the rest of his life. He assembled
an extraordinary faculty in composition, operatic and choral
activities, and instrumental performance; he himself taught the
most gifted conductors.

Koussevitzky continued to develop the Tanglewood Music Center
until 1950, a year after his retirement as the BSO's music
director. Charles Munch, his successor in that position, ran the
TMC from 1951 through 1962, working with Leonard Bernstein and
Aaron Copland to shape the school's programs. In 1963, new BSO
Music Director Erich Leinsdorf took over the school's reins,
returning to Koussevitzky's hands-on leadership approach while
restoring a renewed emphasis on contemporary music. The TMC's
annual Festival of Contemporary Music, produced in association with
the Fromm Music Foundation, was begun in 1963.

In 1970, three years before his appointment as BSO music
director, Seiji Ozawa became head of the BSO's programs at
Tanglewood, with Gunther Schuller leading the TMC and Leonard
Bernstein as general advisor. Leon Fleisher served as the TMC's
Artistic Director from 1985 to 1997. In 1994, with the opening of
Seiji Ozawa Hall, the TMC centralized its activities on the Leonard
Bernstein Campus, which also includes the Aaron Copland Library,
chamber music studios, administrative offices, and the Leonard
Bernstein Performers Pavilion adjacent to Ozawa Hall. In 1998,
Ellen Highstein was appointed to the new position of Director of
the Tanglewood Music Center, operating under the artistic
supervision of Seiji Ozawa. Maestro James Levine took over as Music
Director of the BSO in 2005 and has continued the tradition of
hands-on involvement with the TMC, conducting both orchestral
concerts and staged operas, as well as participating in
masterclasses for singers, conductors, and composers.

It would be impossible to list all the distinguished musicians
who have studied at the Tanglewood Music Center. According to
recent estimates, 20 percent of the members of American symphony
orchestras, and 30 percent of all first-chair players, studied at
the TMC.

Today, alumni of the Tanglewood Music Center play a vital role
in the musical life of the nation. Tanglewood and the Tanglewood
Music Center, have become a fitting shrine to the memory of Serge
Koussevitzky, a living embodiment of the vital, humanistic
tradition that was his legacy. At the same time, the Tanglewood
Music Center maintains its commitment to the future as one of the
world's most important training grounds for the composers,
conductors, instrumentalists, and vocalists of tomorrow.